The Golubovci Airfield Intercepts: Yugoslav Pilots Chase a Glowing Object over Titograd

January 1975. Golubovci airfield lies outside Titograd, the city now called Podgorica, in Montenegro. It was home to the 172nd aviation regiment of the Yugoslav air force, commanded by Zvonko Jurjević. He would later become a major general and the last commander of the SFRY Air Force and Air Defence.

The regiment flew night training in Galeb G-2 and Jastreb J-21 trainers. Each night, about 50 minutes after the first takeoff, something joined them.

Pilot Dragan Marjanović is said to have been the first to see it. A glowing sphere, or a glowing disc, markedly larger than the brightest star. Its strong light shifted from white to violet, and one pilot, Maček, watched it turn bright red. It appeared between Nikšić and Herceg Novi, on a course of 130 to 150 degrees. "It moved strangely, from almost hovering in the air to unimaginable cosmic speeds that it suddenly reached," Jurjević said.

Saturday 25 January 1975. Jurjević climbed to about 3,000 metres and saw the light near Budva. He dived to 2,500 metres at about 600 km/h, then flew on toward Dubrovnik. The distance never changed, and over Dubrovnik the object accelerated sharply and vanished. "It did not let me get closer than 10 kilometres," he recalled.

On 28 January a pair of MiG-21s from Batajnica joined the hunt, with 12 trainers flying as decoys. The light appeared between Cetinje and Danilovgrad, at the same altitude as the aircraft. Pilot Mamić reported "Now I see it." Then he lost it over international waters. Radar officer Aleksandar Kostić remembered the object vanishing and reappearing behind the MiGs.

Then, about 9 February. A glowing disc came in over Čevo and headed for the airfield. It hovered about three kilometres above Golubovci, lighting up the planes and pilots on the runway. Then the object switched off its lights and disappeared.

Kostić served at the Prevlaka radar station. He described a daily track from the direction of Brindisi, crossing the Adriatic at 6,500 km/h and stopping dead over Ćilipi. Ismet Kulenović, commander of the 11th air defence division, ordered a general alert and full secrecy. He also ordered a MiG-21 pilot, who had visual contact, to fire. "No lock," he reported, and the missile did not respond.

According to Kostić, Kulenović told the crews that Tito was staying at Igalo and would be briefed every day. The Federal Secretariat for National Defence reportedly set up an expert commission. One account says engineer Milivoj Jugin led it and judged the object's speed range impossible for any earthly craft. Another says it never reached a conclusion and was quickly disbanded. Jurjević asked for a scientific investigation, but "no one cared at the time and everything was covered up," he said.

The memories do not line up, and dates, colours, distances and the number of aircraft all vary. Kostić says every linked radar tracked the object. Another version has a Prevlaka operator who saw it from his window but found nothing on his screen. Jurjević ruled out a plane or a weather balloon. A meteorological cause was rumoured, but no explanation has ever been settled.

No document has been published. The story surfaced around 2011 in a monograph on the 172nd brigade, then in veterans' interviews with Večernje Novosti, Kurir and BBC News na srpskom. Geographer Vladan Ducić, who links UFO waves to solar and geomagnetic activity, still called Podgorica 1975 the only relevant and credible case in the former Yugoslavia.